Teenager's Messy Room

Save the battles for the things that really count.

“How can I get my teenager to help around the house? He doesn’t even clean his room, let alone pick up his dirty towels and clothes after taking a shower!”

Dear Parent of Messy Teenager,

You are not alone. Almost every parent of a teenager is the parent of a messy one. And if this is the area where you are most frustrated with your adolescent, I advise you to back off and count your blessings.

The variety of means and ways in which teenage children avoid responsibility are legion. We need to be realistic in our expectations.

And recognize the limits of our ability to enforce.

In general, teenagers need some space to try and figure out who they are and where they are going.

They need some rules (they even, very deep down, appreciate having some rules!) but these should be carefully thought out and developed. Since even the trivial can turn into a heated shouting match with your hormonal adolescent, you want to save the battles for the things that really count. I’m not sure that a messy room is one of them.

It is hard to “get a teenager” to do anything. They are often defiant or just plain disinterested. Their priorities are of the moment and shaped by their peers. In fact, the real secret to getting teenagers to clean their rooms is to get their friends to straighten up theirs!

In general our kids want to be good. They want to do what’s right. They want to be love and appreciated. Believe it or not, they don’t even want to fight with us. But they will if we force them into it, they will if we back them into a wall, they will if we provoke it.

So we have to be the grownups. We have to exercise a little (okay, sometimes it’s a lot!) self-control. We have to focus on where they’re doing a good job instead of allowing frustration to build over where they’re not.

Constant nagging is inevitably unsuccessful. Too many rules just mean that more will be broken.

We need to praise our teenagers for what they do right. We need to look for opportunities to appreciate them.

And we need to maintain perspective. With all the trouble that kids can get into these days, God forbid, with all the potentially destructive situations lurking just around the corner, a messy room seems like an easy thing to live with, perhaps even something to accept with gratitude!

About the Author

Emuna Braverman has a law degree from the University of Toronto and a Masters in in Clinical Psychology with an emphasis on Marriage and Family Therapy from Pepperdine University. She lives with her husband and nine children in Los Angeles where they both work for Aish HaTorah. When she isn''t writing for the Internet or taking care of her family, Emuna teaches classes on Judaism, organizes gourmet kosher cooking groups and hosts many Shabbos guests. She is the cofounder of www.gourmetkoshercooking.com.

The opinions expressed in the comment section are the personal views of the commenters. Comments are moderated, so please keep it civil.

Visitor Comments: 9

(9)
Sandy,
September 2, 2009 5:56 PM

Who Cares??

A messy room won't kill anyone. My mother picked her battles, and making us clean our room wasn't one. I would clean my room because it was messy, not because my mom nagged me to do it. Now as a wife and mother of 2, i keep a clean house. And I am determined not to nag my child about every little thing.
Praise God for doors.....just close them and everyone is happy.

(8)
Leah,
September 2, 2009 4:27 PM

As I read the comments that many parents are writing here, I see many different ways of parenting. I believe that they are correct as they apply to the many varied ways of parenting.
I tell my son to clean his room every night of jus te little things that may be extraneous- to close the closet and shut his drawers and to place the laundry in the basket as Ima does laundry from the basket -not from the floor etc....it is always said in a nice tone of voice-yet serious.
I enjoy my son very much and enjoy helping him with his issues. i believe the validation/listening part of our realtionship is the most valuable- not the messy room bit. I tell him to clean his room or pick up his table mess etc so that he will think this way in the future. I do not expect that he will understand or "enjoy" doing it now. Oh and uh, yeah, so one day his wife will not have to as well and his kids will learn and their kids and their kids and so on and so and......

(7)
Patty,
September 2, 2009 12:05 PM

Electronics are good incentives too........

A parent doesn't need to wait for the teen to be able to drive. If my daughter can't get her room together (I insist on once a week-unless she can't find things) she loses all electronic devices (I include anything whether she owns it or the family owns it) until the room is done.

(6)
Anonymous,
September 2, 2009 11:09 AM

easier said than done

it is easier said than done to have strict rules about rooms, even if these rules have always been in place teenagers will often defy them. if yours doesnt your lucky- I have a teenager who is driving everyone crazy and nothing seems to work with this child. He is defiant, his room is a mess, and it is all about him all the time. So it is easy to say just do this just do that , sometimes nothing works

(5)
raymond bastarache,
September 2, 2009 1:27 AM

a word to the wise is sufficient, cleanliness is next to Godliness

Train up a child in the way he should go, when he is old he shall not depart from it... IT IS NOT TIME TO DISCIPLINE A CHILD WHEN HE,S A TEENAGER . YOUR TOO LATE...... START WHEN HE IS YOUNG.

(4)
Anonymous,
September 1, 2009 10:11 PM

i agree, but...

i totally agree- you must 'pick your battles'. though they always helped with certain chores, and if asked,
somewhere in their teens i stopped making their beds and cleaning up their rooms afte rthem. i figured eventually they'll get sick of it themselves, and start doing it. they are/were good kids and i just thought this was not worth arguing about.
but maybe i was wrong- to this day neither of my daughters thinks it's important to fix a bed. my sons, i think, just rely on their wives, and i don;t want to know what the situation is there
as long as they're happy...

(3)
federalbi,
September 1, 2009 4:37 PM

Must be as interested as we are

In order to get anyone to do practically anything ,the prospective doer, be he teenager or septegenarian, must be as interested in the project as the requester is in seeing it done. Figure out how to do that and rule the world.

(2)
sharon,
August 31, 2009 5:09 PM

A messy room makes everyone's life harder

While I agree that parents must choose to pick their battles, I insist on clean rooms because it makes everyone's life easier. When my son isn't ready to leave for school on time because he can't find his math book (or his shoes, or his wallet, etc.) it throws everyone's morning off. Similarly, when he leaves his wet towel on the floor in the bathroom or the dirty laundry in his room starts to stink up the house, the whole family is affected. I have very strict rules that the bedrooms and public areas of the house must be picked up before any privlidges are allowed. Fortunately, once teens start to drive it is easy to get them to do anything by simply dangling the car keys.

(1)
Dvirah,
August 31, 2009 2:53 PM

Inside and Out

The Mother mentioned that her teenager also leaves clothes lying about the shower. This inconveniences others as well. I recommend a talk with the teenager in which it is made clear that his/her room is her/her own responsibility so if it's messy or not is his/her own business. (Mother will not clean up for the teenager.) However, courtesy toward others in the family is a must so no leaving clothes or other possessions lying about the house. (This worked in my family when I carried thru a few times on my threat to give away or throw away the items left lying around - replacements if needed to be paid for out of the teenager's own money, whether earned or allowance.)

I have had a very difficult life, beset by illness, unemployment, and disappointment from those who had pledged to care for me. I am having trouble seeing the benevolent God in all this. What do you say, rabbi?

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

I am very sorry to hear about the difficult times that you have had to endure. The trials that you have gone through no doubt have obviously made your relationship to God a difficult one. I can understand why.

As a rabbi, I have witnessed the most horrendous situations imaginable. I have experienced a 20-year-old who lost both of her parents in a car crash. Can you imagine a girl so close to her parents and in one day they're gone? I've lived through a husband coming home to find that his wife has collapsed, and in two days she's dead. There was nothing wrong with her before. And on and on and on.

When someone is in the midst of suffering, that's not the time to offer answers. It's a time to listen and empathize and be with the person as best you can. If there's anyone going through a painful time and is looking for a sense of relief, I am skeptical whether these intellectual answers will offer any kind of relief.

Dealing with pain and suffering is never easy, particularly since we often feel so helpless and out of control. But one thing we do have control over and that is our attitude. Try to stick to this 3-part formula:

1) Look for the positive side to things.

2) Try not to judge God, Who knows more than we do.

3) Ask God for the clarity to understand how this is for the best.

Our perceptions of good and evil are directly related to our understanding of the world. An African tribesman who never saw a hypodermic syringe in his life could think upon seeing a doctor inoculate a child that the doctor was actually trying to hurt the child! Our perceptions change with information.

Therefore the Jewish approach to "suffering" is that everything happens for the good, but since we are finite and cannot see the whole picture, we perceive some things as bad.

God has more information than we do; thus we cannot judge Him and say He is doing something bad. We trust God and say, "I haven't yet figured out why, but God knows this is for the best."

The Talmud tells the story of Rebbe Akiva who was traveling on the road late one night. His only source of light, a candle, blew out; his mode of transportation, a donkey, ran away; and his only source of food, a chicken, died. The next morning Rebbe Akiva realized that armed bandits had plundered everything in the area. Had they seen his candle, or heard his chicken or donkey, they would have victimized him as well.

We can accept pain and suffering in the world by trying to see what positive side it may have. For example, a woman whose child was killed by a drunk driver went out and started MADD - Mothers Against Drunk Driving. This organization was responsible for revolutionizing the laws against drunk driving in America, and as a result has surely saved thousands of lives. It could be said that the purpose of this child was to elevate his mother to the towering heights of greatness that she indeed achieved as a result of the tragedy.

Of course it is not always easy to find the positive side. But even the attempt helps tremendously. It is interesting that if we look back on our own lives, the times we have grown the most are not when things have gone easy, but when they've been difficult. So many times what appears as "bad" or "negative" ends up being a blessing. A person could lose their job, for example, only to realize later that was the opportunity they needed to break into a growing, new field!

In the meanwhile, we have invested so much time and energy into worrying or regretting - all for nothing and all to our detriment. It is wise to remember that worry is defined as "interest paid in advance on a debt which often times never comes due." So when we are having problems, we can ask ourselves, "What have I learned or gained?"

Also, there are two excellent books I can recommend: "Why me, God?" by Lisa Aiken (published by Aaronson), and "Confronting the Loss of a Baby," by Yamin Levy (Ktav).

In 1973, a cease-fire resolution was passed by the U.N. Security Council to halt the Yom Kippur War. Shuttle diplomacy by Henry Kissinger compelled Israel and Egypt to accept the cease-fire. Fighting, however, would continue for another four days. In the war, Israel suffered the loss of 2,600 soldiers and 800 tanks. Four years later, Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat would visit Jerusalem and announce his readiness to forge a permanent peace deal.

I told a group of people to repeat, "I am grateful to my Creator" five minutes each day for a month. Some of the results were:

* "At first I found it difficult to keep this up. This gave me a jolt. The Creator is giving me life each moment of each day and He gives me the air I breathe. Why is it so hard for me to express my gratitude? This self-rebuke gave me a strong feeling of motivation. I was committed to use the power of repeating messages to myself to build up this gratitude.

* "I realized that I would only be able to repeat this for five minutes at a time if I would sing it with a tune. So I would sing this five minutes each day. It became my favorite song.

* "The first day when I heard this, I found myself having to wait for something to start. I began to feel frustrated. Then I said to myself, ‘This is a perfect time to repeat, "I am grateful to my Creator" for five minutes.' It totally transformed the waiting into an uplifting experience. Throughout the month, I chose potentially frustrating moments to practice this. After a while, the stirrings of feelings of frustration became a trigger to begin my exercise."

* "Someone saw me smiling while I was waiting in line at my local supermarket. He asked me if anything special is going on in my life. "There are a lot of special things that I'm beginning to become more aware of," I replied.

* "By repeating, ‘I am grateful to my Creator,' I began to realize that everyone who is kind to me in any way was sent to me by my Creator. I increased my gratitude towards those people and I increased my gratitude to the Creator of it all."

May He Who knows what is hidden accept our call for help and listen to our cry (Siddur).

The Talmud states that a person may be coerced to perform a mitzvah even if it is required that the mitzvah be done of one's own volition (Rosh Hashanah 6a).

But are not coercion and volition mutually exclusive? Not necessarily, explains Rambam. Inasmuch as the soul of the Jew intrinsically wishes to do the Divine will, and it is only the physical self - which is subject to temptation - that may be resistive, the coercion inflicted upon the person overcomes that external resistance. Thus, when one performs the mitzvah, it is with the full volition of the inner self, the true self, for at his core, every Jew wishes to comply with the mandates of the Torah.

There is a hidden part of us, to which we may have limited access, yet we know it is there. When we pray for our needs, said Rabbi Uri of Strelisk, we generally ask only for that which we feel ourselves to be lacking. However, we must also recognize that our soul has spiritual needs, and that we may not be aware of its cravings.

We therefore pray, said Rabbi Uri, that God should listen not only to the requests that we verbalize, but also to our hidden needs that are very important to us - but which He knows much better than we.

Today I shall...

try to realize that there is a part of me of which I am only vaguely aware. I must try to get to know that part of myself, because it is my very essence.

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